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Differences in work activities between private and community health centre general practitioners
Author(s) -
Montalto Michael,
Adams Geoff,
Dunt David R,
Street Andrew
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1995.tb124520.x
Subject(s) - referral , remuneration , global positioning system , family medicine , medicine , community health , multivariate analysis , general practice , nursing , public health , business , telecommunications , finance , computer science
Objective To investigate differences in the characteristics of general practitioners (GPs) and patients, referral rates, rates of prescribing and ordering of tests and x‐rays, and types of counselling and consultation, between private and community health centre (CHC) GPs in Victoria. Method : All 51 full‐time Victorian CHC GPs were invited to enrol in the Australian Morbidity and Treatment Survey (AMTS) developed by the Family Medicine Research Unit at the University of Sydney in 1992. The control group comprised the 114 Victorian GPs involved in this survey in 1991. Results Thirty‐nine CHC GPs (76%) provided complete data. CHC GPs were more likely to be younger, female, and to have less experience in general practice. Patient age and gender distributions were similar. CHC GPs had higher rates of offering counselling and advice and of referral to allied health professionals, but similar rates of referral to medical specialists to those of private GPs. We found no differences in prescribing after multivariate analysis. Conclusions Counselling, and referral to allied health professionals, were the only striking differences after multivariate analysis. It may be that any movement toward non‐throughput‐related remuneration may, in isolation, have less impact on general practitioner work patterns than imagined. Patient throughput was not measured, and this would be important in any future global assessment of the cost‐effectiveness of CHC and private general practitioners.